Testing the waters? Cory Booker heads to New Hampshire before 2020 talk with advisers

Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., was the keynote speaker June 16, 2018 at the Virginia Democratic Party's biggest fund-raiser of the year. A southern state that has increasingly trended Democratic, Virginia is vital to presidential candidates, which Booker could be in 2020.
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New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker speaks to a capacity crowd on behalf of Mississippi Senate candidate Mike Espy at the Luckyday Citizenship Hall on the campus of the University of Southern Mississippi Monday, Nov 19. Espy is in a runoff election against Cindy Hyde-Smith on Nov. 27.(Photo: Barbara Gauntt/Clarion Ledger)

Over the past two years, Sen. Cory Booker campaigned in 24 states from Alabama to Wisconsin, gave away at least $500,000 of contributors' money to more than 100 candidates, and another $160,000 to Democratic Party committees in 25 states.

He also campaigned with at least 41 candidates – 15 lost and 26 won – running for Senate, House governor and state office. All that time, he said he was focused on helping his party, not building his brand for a 2020 run for president.

Now that the books are closing on the 2018 election, it's decision time.

Booker has said he will meet with advisers over the Christmas holidays to discuss whether to focus in 2020 on running for president, or for another term in the Senate.

Before he does that, however, he’s going to New Hampshire this weekend, his second trip there in six weeks.

The main event Saturday fits with Booker's argument he is still focused on party building. He's the key speaker at a celebration state Democrats are throwing in Manchester to mark their success in November, when they won a majority of the seats in the U.S. House of Representatives, the state Legislature and the Executive Council, a five-member board that approves state contracts and gubernatorial appointees.

But it is notable that Booker’s schedule also includes small-group meetings in the homes of Democratic officials and activists in Nashua, Concord and Keene, N.H.

“It’s coffee and conversation with Cory Booker,” said James Demers, a New Hampshire lobbyist who worked with Booker’s team to set up the meetings and was chairman of then-Sen. Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign in the Granite State.

“It’s typical New Hampshire campaigning, where people come out and meet a candidate face-to-face, and ask their own personal questions,” Demers said. “It’s also a good test for him as he goes into the holiday season to weigh whether or not he wants to do it, to get a feel of what it’ll be like.”

This far out from New Hampshire’s first-in-the-nation primary in 2020, interest in the state still primarily involves activists and elected officials, Demers said. By spring, he said, “real voters” start to show up, and they expect direct access to candidates as they weigh how to vote.

“Once people do have face-to-face discussions with him like we do during campaigns, they’re going to find out he’s a really substantive guy,” Demers said. “Democrats’ best chance of winning the presidency is putting forward someone who is new blood, from the next generation of leadership, and somebody whose style and approach to government is unifying and not divisive."

Booker told WPIX on Monday he is going to meet with family, friends and advisers during the holidays to discuss “whether to run for re-election, which has been my sole focus, or now, begin to think about running for president.”

Booker said he had received “a lot of calls from people around the country about running and I’ve had a lot of these conversations which I’ve just been trying to hold off, to try to focus on the work. But this holiday season will be a great time for me to sit down, bring together folks, and make a decision.”

That Demers talks about Booker as though he's a candidate is a sign the senator's goals may be shifting from rallying fellow Democrats to support other candidates to "testing the waters" for his own candidacy.

And that's a critical test of whether Booker's efforts should come under different campaign finance rules, which may come with lower contribution limits, according to Paul S. Ryan, an attorney with Common Cause.

"If he admits he's exploring a candidacy, he's subject to a $2,700 limit. If he admits he's actually a candidate, he's not only subject to the $2,700 limit, he's subject to a requirement that he immediately file paperwork with the Federal Election Commission, set up a presidential campaign committee and begin disclosing all your donors," Ryan said.

Over the past two years, Booker's travels have been funded by a variety of accounts, including some of the state party organizations that invited him to headline their party fundraisers.

Booker controls two main political funds, Cory Booker for Senate, which has a limit of $2,700 maximum contributions per election from individuals, and Purpose PAC, a "leadership" political action committee to which individuals can give $5,000 a year.

Booker for Senate spent $153,000 on travel from the start of 2017 through Sept. 30, including more than $67,000 on plane tickets, according to FEC disclosures.

Purpose PAC spent another $55,000 on travel, including $37,500 on plane tickets. Purpose PAC was also the source of the $660,000 Booker gave to other candidates and state parties.

After banning "soft money" contributions to parties, Congress allowed its members to set up leadership PACs to raise money to support other members of their parties.

"The only thing you can't use a leadership PAC for is campaign expenses like signs or polls," said Meredith McGehee, executive director of Issue One, a campaign finance reform advocacy group. "For almost anything else, the leadership PAC money is a total slush fund."

Ryan said that while Booker may have to disclose expenditures on testing the presidential waters if he decides to run, he can still use his leadership PAC for those expenses, as long as he does not use more than $2,700 derived from each contributor.

"At a minimum, I believe Cory Booker is testing the waters of a campaign, and anyone who is testing the waters can only use candidate-permissible funds to pay, which is no more than $2,700 per donor, no corporate money, and no union money," Ryan said.

Booker spokesman Jeff Giertz said the senator "worked tirelessly to ensure that Democrats won up and down the ballot" in states that included New Hampshire, and he is going there "to thank activists and volunteers" for their work.